Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

I have had this for 3 months and it works great. It also takes fantastic photos. The video quality is excellent. I see alot of negative comments about low light but I don't think it a fair. My VG10 works very well in low light. The mic is amazing and it's great for documentary filming. The stock lens is fantastic - to say the least and is even better than some comprable Nikon lenses that I own. It took some time getting used to but once you get used to it your off flying. I reccomend this to anyone that really wants to shoot video without spending more than 2k.

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

Why didn't it exist in the last 30 years?...
Unbelievable clear image at low ligth situations, but not the same when attached to sony 1118 super wide angle lens, unfortunately.

Just check soon some of my footages at youtube. Search for Celio Barros.

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

I purchased this camera as an upgrade for my own small business. I needed a camera that had the features of a pro camera such as the manual focus ring and the adaptability of changing out lens. This camera fits that nitch perfectly. The quality of my videos went up instantly. If you're just making the move from consumer to pro I highly recommend this camera.

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

I am filmmaker whos produce a tv show with cinematic style of photography, the nex-vg10 give me the look and the depth of field, wich i need, if only i could record 24p native, but the nex-vg20 is coming, rigth...

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

I have been using the 10 for the last 6-7 months and there is nothing too special about this camera. Great stabilization and alright image quality, honestly my nex-5 has almost the same quality. Im disappointed in the lack of professional control over recording, No 24p, no zebra. Horrible in low light. The small mini jack for any external audio is garbage! The quad mic is over good, but it picks up everything in any direction and its very very sensitive. I shoot weddings, short films, and music videos the 10 limits my creativity with its frame rate. Im currently selling mine and buying the GH2 for more creative control. My Canon XA-10 does everything the 10 does an BETTER. The menu bottoms are difficult to find and work in guerrilla style shooting. Also the color quality is off slightly, the nex-5 does not have that problem at all. Over all this camera let me down!

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

easy to use

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

My biggest problem is the menu system, and the functions that appear in movie mode that aren't available movie mode, DMF lets you auto focus and fine tune manual focus when holding down the photo shutter, it would be great in video, it appears, but you cant use it, you get tripped up and re select auto focus if you are trying to switch quickly to manual. The handheld footage looks great, Dslr rigs don't even compare to the handling of this video camera. I love the grainy low light high gain look this camera produces, its similar to 16mm film grain and I love that, its texture is obvious but beautiful.The SD card flap seems kind of flimsy, and the lcd latch is tricky for some people. The auto focus is strange it does not auto focus in the ball park range of your object, rather reaches both ends of the focus, but I love the look it gave off (especially in portraits). The Dslr aliasing problems are not as apparent as in the 5D or 7D. White balance can be dialed in, go to C temp/filter then option button, its great.

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

I had high hopes for this camera. Unfortunately, tremendously dissapointed. Right out of the box I noticed there is no power zoom. The zoom function is completely manual. Not a huge deal to a pro but this lens would be difficult to do a controlled, even motion zoom. I set the camera up in a well lit studio environment: 2-1500W floods and 3-500W fill spheres. There was barely enough sensitivity to shoot a full frame Macbeth chart placed 8' from the camera at 0 gain. I had to bump up the gain to +3 and better at +6. I ran a sensitity test at all gain levels from Auto thru the top end at +27. You will start to see noise at +6, evident at +9, beyond that ... it just gets worse. In a well lit environmnet, it will give you a very high quality image, but ... anything less well ...
For a working pro - forget it. There's much more to say but not enough room here.
For a serious consumer - honestly, you'll get better results and easier use with a less expensive Canon, Panasonic, or JVC.
Sorry Sony - I expected more from you, the technology you are building this on has promise - but you missed the mark by a long shot.

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

The NEX VG10 is very innovative using interchangeable lenses and giving the camera operator the ability to choose aperture settings and shutter speed to get achieve a shallow depth of field, but it wasn't a well thought out design in my opinion. I like to use the viewfinder a lot to save on battery life, but the only way to change the settings is to open up the LCD screen and scroll through the menu. Also, the only low light lens available without an adapter is a 16mm wide-angle lens which can distort your image. For someone who is thinking about doing videography and using multiple cameras, including DSLRs (a must), you would have to be willing to go with Sony as your brand of choice, because after buying a decent low-light lens along with the adapter, you would end up investing a lot into this one product. The new Sony NEX 3 & 5 are the only DSLRs for Sony that record video and they don't have all of the settings at your fingertips like canon or nikon. I think its best to wait for Canon to come out with a similar product in this price range if you plan on getting heavily invested into lenses. For the consumer just looking to make some home videos, they would probably set everything to auto anyway and the auto-focus on this cam is not that great and the only way to zoom in and out is manually with the lens. I think the consumer should go with something a little easier to use.

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

Lack of focus on speed 18-200 lens and the focal points of the shooting mode should also be valid for the video mode

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

I document life as I see. This is my first video camara since my old, canon L2. I miss the build in digital fx the canon had. However this is a new guy in town so I believe it takes getting use too. Change is good, It's just a matter of learning over again. Some preplanning before a shoot and no problem. I shot 3 hours in different lighting day, noon, nite. With light and no light
this camara gave me great results. I love the quality. A big plus it's light to carry around. The battery has a good running time, manual zoom saves battery life, smart of you , Sony.

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

Very small, lightweight and reasonably inexpensive. The S35 sized sensor makes for great shallow DOF images. The record times (until your card or battery run out) are wonderful and the built in mic is as good as I've ever heard. Eminently usable in a pinch. The controls for exposure are unbelievably fiddly, and completely inaccessible when the side LCD is closed and you're using the eyepiece. The highlight handling is not great and the moire is simply horrible.

That said, when it works it's really nice. The color reproduction is very nice, the built in lens looks very good (not having run objective tests I'm just talking in generalities) and as long as you're willing to put up with strange ergonomics and moire it's a reasonable camera.

Also, the low light performance isn't great. Even with a fast prime you're going to find normally lit offices a bit dark, homes very dark, and twilight shots very dim. It's a shame, I had hoped for better. The noise at high gain is definitely present, but less ugly then some I've seen, so maybe you feel OK about the low light performance if you're willing to put up with a fair bit of not terribly ugly noise.

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

I purchased this camera because I already own several Alpha mount lenses for my Sony A700 dslr. The image quality is amazing. I mainly shoot with the Tamron 70-200 2.8 and the Sigma 18-50 2.8 using the sony adapter.

Unlike dslr video shooting the camera isn't awkward to hold, panning doesn't cause artifacts and you are able to shoot more then 10 minutes of video.

The lens it comes with is ok. I think the focus ring is too stiff. (I shoot manual focus.) Besides the alpha mount adapter, I bought an audio mixer that mounts on the bottom of the camera for use with off camera mics.

The only thing I don't like is the menu controls. Have to dig down too much to do simple things and forget about using them if you have gloves on. Also would have been nice to have a record button on the handle

A Special note to Mac users. There is no included capture software. It saves the videos as .mts. I use Final Cut pro - Log and "TRANSFER". Not CAPTURE but TRANSFER. There are also some low cost and shareware apps out there that will do it too. Transfer time is nothing

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

This camera has been great for interviews and documentary style films. I do wish it had xlr capabilities for audio.

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

Great shots on stills, very good resolution and lighting latitudes for video. Menue system is functional, but not ergonomic; The steadyshot function is tremendous; the NEX VG10 camera is light weight, powerful and unobtrusive. The AVCHD format for this camera is tremendous and the shape, external mic etc are really very clever.
Video images are intensely sharp thanks to a high-res LCD screen; excellent depth of field with 18- 200 lens. Value for money, this camera will suit Music Video artists, Art Video Artists and Documentary filmmakers. This is a very powerful tool.
Ron Rodger- Totara Productions NZ

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

In the face of the DSLR for video fad, I could see the Sony engineers thinking, "Hey, we can quickly design a large sensor video camera and get it to customers who want to do digital cinema." Well it worked... a DSLR sized sensor in a video camera so that it doesn't overheat and the option for interchangeable lenses.

My problem is that it still has some of the compromises of the DSLR cameras... mini-plug input for audio and no audio controls, variable aperture and manually zoomed lens, and menu driven adjustments. As a former news camera operator, these things slow me down.

On the other hand, if I were to shoot cinema style production with lots of time to set up each shot, a selection of large aperture prime lenses, and a double sound system, for the price, this camera is fantastic!

Amateur option, put everything in the automatic mode and shot beautiful video 90% of the time with okay audio and you'll be very happy with the results.

One control issue, the combination thumb wheel and button doesn't respond consistently for me. I usually don't have this much of a problem, having owned Sony products with this feature before, but I have a problem with this one being somewhat unresponsive.

Post production: Final Cut Pro's "log and transfer" method of importing the video is easy and not excessively time consuming. Singular Software's "Pluraleyes" should make syncing double sound systems audio easy if you don't want to slate every scene.

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

This camera shoots incredibly in low light situations. Clearly some people don't know how to set the aperture/gain/even auto settings. The NEX isn't bogged down with dozens of useless features you would find on a one of Sony's Chinese made cameras costing the same but looking a lot more expensive. It also has two external mounts for additional mic's and/or light.
I think this camera was designed for webcasts/tripod uses. Not having auto zoom when you have a giant lens is one feature I'm not missing. I purchased this in Berlin early 2011 and have already gone through 7 SDHC cards (16-32G) because I like to keep original info.
Very well made, high quality, easy to use. If you want a big bulky camera for less money because you want to look like a pro this camera isn't for you. But if you want a sleek messenger bag camera case (sony) to whip this thing out on the fly this is for you.
All the best.

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

This is a very good camera, is basically a semi-pro. I like all the manual functions: focus, aperture, shutter speed and even the zoom although at the beginning it can be a little difficult to use.
It seems to work good in low light conditions, but the best of everything is the possibility of changing lenses.
A couple of things i don't like: it can't take photos while it's shooting video and the lcd can't be turned 180 degrees.

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

I will use this product for filming weddings and short videos.

I like the feature of auto focus. And great picture quality!

The one that could improve is the audio. I will have to use a separate lav mic anyway for the wedding vows but the onboard mic could be improved. And because it only has one hookup, I will have to figure out how to attach a sound mixer to gather both the lav and the shotgun mic (which is sold separately).

Comments about Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Handycam Camcorder:

I use this great product for both video and photo shoots.